Girard-Perregaux
| Girard-Perregaux Foundation SA
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1791 |
| Seat | La Chaux-de-Fonds , Switzerland |
| management | Massimo Cesare Macaluso |
| Branch | Watch manufacturer |
| Website | http://www.girard-perregaux.com |
The watch brand Girard-Perregaux is one of the oldest of the Swiss watch manufacturers with its headquarters in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the canton of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. The company produces in the upper luxury segment .
history
In 1850 the young watchmaker Constant Othenin-Girard opened his watch workshop. After he married Marie, the sister of the chronometer maker Henri Perregaux, in 1854 , the company was renamed Girard-Perregaux in 1856, after his new alliance name . Right from the start, the company was focused on producing comparatively precise chronometers. Between 1866 and 1876 it won several prizes at the observatory in Neuchatel decorated Chronometer Competitions. Particularly noteworthy are the pocket chronometers with 3-bridge movement and tourbillon , for which Girard-Perregaux received the gold medal for special achievements in the field of precision at the world exhibition in Paris in 1867 and 1889. At the order of the German Navy, Girard-Perregaux (according to Jaquet and Chapuis) is said to have produced around 2000 copies of a wristwatch with a diameter of around 11 lines to be worn on a metal chain bracelet as early as 1880 .
In 1906, Girard-Perregaux, under the management of Louis-Constant Girard-Gallet, bought the watch manufacturer Bautte und Moynier , which had already been founded in 1791 by Jean Francois Bautte , and from then on recorded the year 1791 in the company's chronicle as the year of foundation. During the economic crisis, Otto Graef , the owner of Manufacture Internationale de Montres d'Or (MIMO), the manufacturer of the first wristwatch with slide rule , acquired the majority stake in the company in 1929 after Girard-Perregaux went bankrupt the year before. In 1969 Girard-Perregaux went public.
Further milestones in the company's history are the automatic wristwatch with Gyromatic movement presented in 1957 and the production of the first mechanical high-frequency movement, the HF Chronometer , in 1966 , whose balance wheel worked at 36,000 semi-oscillations ( amplitudes ) per hour and the 1966 profit of the century price for chronometry of the observatory in Neuchâtel. In 1970 Girard-Perregaux presented the first industrially manufactured quartz watch in Switzerland. The standard of 32.768 Hz for quartz movements set by Girard-Perregaux at the time is still valid today in the entire industry. In 1978 the smallest quartz movement in the world followed. Since Otto Graef's heirs had no heirs, the company was sold to the Desco von Schulthess trading company in 1979 .
In 1988 Girard-Perregaux was sold to its managing director Francis Besson in association with several banks. After GP had only produced quartz watches for almost 20 years, the company resumed the production of mechanical watches in 1989. In 1991, on the occasion of its 200th anniversary, its own museum was opened. In 1992, the former racing driver Luigi Macaluso bought the company as owner of the Sowind Group. In June 2008, Kering initially took over 23% of the shares in the Sowind Group, then in 2011 50.1%.
Girard-Perregaux also supplies other watch brands with calibers , including MB&F , Gucci and its own subsidiary Daniel JeanRichard .
Series
- Vintage collection
- Classique collection
- Laureato
- GP 7000
- Richeville
- Vintage 1945
- Hawk / Sea Hawk
- WW.TC Worldtimer
literature
- François Chaille: Girard-Perregaux , Éditions Flammarion, Paris 2005, ISBN 978-2080304650 .
Web links
- Homepage of Girard-Perregaux
- Girard-Perregaux (Watch Wiki)
- The story of the Sea Hawk
- The model "1966" is now also available with a steel case (September 2016)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry in the commercial register ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Eugene Jaquet, Alfred Chapuis: Technique And History Of The Swiss Watch From Its Beginning To The Present Day. Boston Book And Art Shop, Boston, USA, printed in Switzerland 1953.
- ^ Helmut Kahlert , Richard Mühe , Gisbert L. Brunner : Wristwatches: 100 years of development history . Callwey, Munich 1983; 5th, expanded edition, ibid. 1996, ISBN 3-7667-1241-1 , p. 16.
- ↑ Girard-Perregaux on vintagewatchstraps.com
- ↑ Handelszeitung publishing group. (No longer available online.) In: pme.ch. Archived from the original on January 4, 2014 ; Retrieved August 10, 2012 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Hans F. Tölke: Everything was already there. On Girard-Perregaux's "Gyromatics". In: Old clocks. Volume 3, 1988, pp. 63-68.
- ↑ Seductive! Ingenious movement: Girard-Perregaux 1966 Lady , trustedwatch.com. Retrieved December 24, 2013.
- ↑ PPR becomes majority shareholder of Sowind Group | Reuters. In: reuters.com. Retrieved August 10, 2012 .
